Five San­dals Foun­da­tion Vol­un­teers part­nered with var­i­ous de­part­ments of the San­dals Re­sorts prop­er­ties to ex­e­cute a much needed and heart-touch­ing “Chal­lenge Project” at the Holy Fam­ily Chil­dren’s Home in Ciceron.

The or­phan­age is home to over a dozen chil­dren who have been aban­doned, or­phaned, ne­glected or abused and pro­vides a loving and se­cure tem­po­rary en­vi­ron­ment. The home had fallen into dis­re­pair and was in dire need of re­fur­bish­ment and ren­o­va­tion.

The Chal­lenge Project was se­lected by per­sons in the Man­age­ment Trainee Pro­gramme (MTP): Ja­maicaborn Tor­shie Brown and Danielle Da­ley, Christo­pher Boyce from Bar­ba­dos and Rochelle Casimir and Kevin Al­bert from St. Lu­cia. Val­ued at almost EC $13,000, the project took two days to com­plete, from Oc­to­ber 16-17.

The aim of the ini­tia­tive was to en­hance the phys­i­cal space of the dorms at the home. Day one of the project was ded­i­cated to a de­tailed clean­ing while day two saw to the re­paint­ing of the boys’ area of the home from the San­dals prop­er­ties’ Main­te­nance de­part­ments.

In ad­di­tion, Danielle Da­ley – whose pas­sion is gar­den­ing and pro­mot­ing the im­por­tance of grow­ing one’s own food - un­der­took the chal­lenge of build­ing and in­stalling three gar­den boxes to as­sist with the kitchen’s pro­duce needs. Car­rots, toma­toes and an as­sort­ment of beans were planted and seedlings were do­nated for the care­tak­ers to sus­tain the gar­den.

Martina Daniel, As­sis­tant Ad­min­is­tra­tor at Holy Fam­ily noted “our young res­i­dents are hon­oured to be in the thoughts of the San­dals Foun­da­tion vol­un­teers. When they ar­rived at the home on Fri­day from school, the ex­cite­ment about the re­fur­bish­ment was pal­pa­ble as the chil­dren could not stop talk­ing about it. They are happy for the as­sis­tance. We all are.”

Main spon­sors of the project came from San­dals Hal­cyon Beach with the Main­te­nance depart­ment donat­ing 12 gal­lons of paint, five full sheets of ply­wood and their time. The prop­erty’s House­keep­ing depart­ment took care of clean­ing ap­pa­ra­tus, sol­vents & skilled per­son­nel. Other de­part­ments such as Train­ing and De­vel­op­ment, Emer­gency Health & Safety and the Of­fice of the Gen­eral Man­ager also pro­vided as­sis­tance.

San­dals Grande St. Lu­cian’s Main­te­nance team built the gar­den boxes while the House­keep­ing team at San­dals Re­gency La Toc sourced and do­nated fresh linens.

“The project was a huge suc­cess. The support we re­ceived from the prop­er­ties was tremen­dous. The most amaz­ing el­e­ment of putting the project to­gether was be­ing able to see first­hand how com­mit­ted San­dals Re­sorts team mem­bers are to the San­dals Foun­da­tion” said MTP Tor­shie Brown. She added, “It is clear that when we speak of “Mak­ing A Dif­fer­ence” it is a real tan­gi­ble el­e­ment of the San­dals Cul­ture and as MTPs in St. Lu­cia this year we are happy to have been given the op­por­tu­nity to lead such an ini­tia­tive. This ex­pe­ri­ence has made a dif­fer­ence in the lives of the chil­dren at the Ciceron Home as well as ours.”